Quotes About Art

O. A. Manning's poetry

There is truth and there are lies, and art always tells the truth, even when it's lying.

I wanted to do something that I don't know how to do, and offer you the experience of watching someone fumble, because I think maybe that's what art should offer. An opportunity to recognise our common humanity and vulnerability.

From here on, I will submit to great art. It will do with me as it sees fit. I will go where it tells me. I will let it in, let it tear me limb from limb, eradicate me, rebuild me in its own image. I will dwell in it as does a subject in a heavenly kingdom. I will never again attempt to own anything: no film, no person, no idea.

I tried to think of a worse experience I had had in my life, and all I could come up with was a James Franco art exhibit.

Writers don't give prescriptions. They give headaches!

Some people flinch when you talk about art in the context of the needs of society thinking you are introducing something far too common for a discussion of art. Why should art have a purpose and a use? Art shouldn't be concerned with purpose and reason and need, they say. These are improper. But from the very beginning, it seems to me, stories have indeed been meant to be enjoyed, to appeal to that part of us which enjoys good form and good shape and good sound.

Women and music should not be dated.

1)BEING A POET is like opening a car door & exposing yourself. (2)BEING A GOOD POET is like opening the door & exposing the passenger as well.

THIS IS IMPORTANT REALLY A poem should never be longer than two lines. That was the first and this is the second.

The quickest, easiest way to produce something beautiful and lasting is to risk making something horribly crappy.

fiction writing can be a blast when you set aside debilitating notions of perfection and just dive headlong into the creative process.

The first law of exuberant imperfection is essentially this: The quickest, easiest way to produce something beautiful and lasting is to risk making something horribly crappy.

At night, when no one's there, the dancers and the musicians on the walls come to life and there's a glamorous ball. Sometimes their lights are so bright I can see the glow from my bedroom.

read Carlo Levi?

Every song, just like every person, has a story....All good songs leak from a broken heart. And the good ones don't give you something, as much as they take what's already inside and blow on the embers. [Mack Strum]

The role of the artist, then, precisely, is to illuminate that darkness, blaze roads through the vast forest," Baldwin writes, "so that we will not, in all our doing, lose sight of its purpose, which is, after all, to make the world a more human dwelling place.

My show is a sensory assault... in a very brief manner - the show is only 25 minutes long.

Pop songs are like a D.J. set crammed into three minutes.

For a film to be made is a small miracle. And sometimes it's a large one.

You always gotta do what you like. If it connects, it's a miracle, but it happened with Die Antwoord.

I don't know how anyone ever makes a good movie. It's a miracle every time.

The best kind of art or writing holds up a mirror to society.

Art is supposed to hold up a mirror to its audience and ask, 'What do you believe? What do you think? What do you feel?' and if you look at a painting and it makes you feel nothing, that's a feeling as well.